


The Danger of Soulmates

by TheQueen



Series: When Scientist Became Synonymous With Hero [1]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-23
Updated: 2015-01-23
Packaged: 2018-03-08 18:31:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3219098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheQueen/pseuds/TheQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Do you believe in the concept of soulmates?"</p><p>*can be read alone*</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Danger of Soulmates

_To say that one waits a lifetime for his soulmate to come around is a paradox. People eventually get sick of waiting, take a chance on someone, and by the art of commitment become soulmates, which takes a lifetime to perfect._

_Criss Jami ( Venus in Arms)_

**…**

"Cecil?"

"Yes, Carlos," Cecil says somewhat absentmindedly, thumbing through his somewhat illegal (Jefferson let it slide cause he was a good friend like that though Cecil would never let _Steve Carlsburg_ know) copy of the screenplay adaption of _Wicked_.

He usually didn't take to breaking the rules. They were there for a reason, as he often told his listeners. But work had been ... it was his destiny and his duty and his honor and the work of his life, an art that he adored, but everyone had off days. And after three corrections and the death of a child at a PTA meeting—and who in the world was dumb enough to bring a child to a PTA meeting? Everyone knew how high the incident rates were for PTA meetings! –Cecil felt like relaxing with a little guilty pleasure. He had earned it.

"Do you believe in the concept of soulmates?”

Cecil looked up from his book and over to Carlos who was sitting next to him on their porch swing, arms wrapped around his knees with his head leaned back so he was starring up and up into the endless void, a sort of sad look on his perfectly imperfect face. He rolls the sentence "for science?" on his tongue until Carlos looks over and Cecil could see the seriousness in his deep, black, bottomless eyes, eyes that bore until yours until they found your soul just to ensnare it, steal it, suck it away until you're trapped in his gaze, lost forever in his eyes. Falling.

Of all his qualities—his perfect hair, his cemetery-white teeth, his strong jaw—it was his eyes that had caught Cecil's attention day during the fated town meeting, something so powerful and perfect and important that Cecil decided that perhaps just this one thing he could keep to himself.

"I would like to." Cecil says instead. "At times."

"Why?" Carlos asks, not bother to tack on a clumsily added "for science" which meant Cecil had made the right call. He liked to think he had learned quite a bit about the love of his life over the past two or so years. Sometimes, Carlos needed distance or he got tongue tied, nervous and worried and scared and obsessed with the idea that he was doing everything wrong. But sometimes, Carlos needed a straightforward answer. Usually after he had mulled over the topic enough to get it all sorted in his head, which meant this question, a question about soulmates, was something Carlos had been thinking about for a while.

Cecil shrugged, buying time to articulate his answer. If Carlos had though about his question for as long as Cecil imagined he had then it was only right that Cecil think about his answer for at least a little while.

"Because …” he starts slowly, weighing the sounds on his tongue, “I have to admit there is very little I truly know about the universe," he says, "And so I have no reason to say no but at the same time I have no reason to say yes. Plus..." He adds, "I think it's a little ... well ... romantic. The idea that two people are meant to be together so no matter the time or the situation, they'll find each other." He smiles.

Carlos nodded, returning his gaze to the ever looming sky above, “But what…” he licks his lips and Cecil slips the bookmark into place and closes the book, resting it’s hard cover against his thighs, “But what if you…you fall in love with someone who isn’t your soulmate?”

And now a rock forms in the bit of his belly and he finds it hard to swallow, “Do you … think you’ve fallen in love wi-th someone who … isn’t your soulmate?” Cecil asks and then braces himself to the answer because a Scientist is always honest even when Cecil wishes they weren’t.

“What?” And Carlos’ voice pitches an octave or so higher in surprise. “What? No. No, of course...of course not, Cecil. I love you.”

And the force behind those words, the conviction, makes the lump sitting in Cecil’s stomach dissolve and he finds he can breath easier. He slowly loosens his grip on his book and looks over at Carlos (and when had he turned away? When had he closed his eyes?) to see those deep black eyes were lit with a sort of passion reserved for only three things: science, his scientists, and, occasionally, Cecil.

Cecil felt his cheeks flushed and he covered them with their hands in an attempt to hide how ridiculous he felt.

“I love you,” Carlos repeated, pulling at Cecil’s shoulders and moving closer until they were flush from hip to knee and Cecil was looking at his nose to avoid his eyes. Removing his hands from his cheeks, Carlos laced their fingers together and said it again, “I. Love. You.”

Cecil cleared his throat, “I believe you…I love you too.”

Carlos smiled and then turned to look out, not at the sky, but at the front yard lit by the solitary street lamp that still had a habit of flickering on and off where not a creature of any size or sort stirred. But the smile did not sit with Cecil. It looked…it looked too sad.

“What’s wrong?” Cecil asked, squeezing Carlos’ hands.

Carlos sighed and shook his head. “It’s foolish.”

“You're sad,” Cecil argued, “If it makes you sad then it can't be 'foolish.'”

Carlos nibbled on his lip and made to let go of Cecil’s hands, but Cecil just tightened his grip. “Carlos, _what_ is wrong?”

“Whatifwe’renotsoulmates?” Carlos blurted out and then snapped his mouth shut so hard that Cecil could hear the smashing of teeth against teeth on the end of the sentence like a shattering of stone.

It takes a moment for him to pull the sounds apart to make words and when he does, Cecil’s gut reaction was denial, “But what if we are?” he argued.

“But…” Carlos floundered, “That’s…that’s just it. Isn’t it? What if we are? What if we aren’t?” he shrugged helplessly and pulls away so he’s sitting more at the edge of the bench then next to Carlos. “How do you know? What if… What if you’re just wasting your time with me?”

And now it was like a floodgate was opened and Cecil was terrified of what it held. “What if one day you’ll find your soulmate and you’ll be too … tied to me to leave? What if there is someone out there who could make you truly happy and you decide to … to stay and miss out? What if you regret it? What if you regret me and…and our lives fall apart and we become miserable and…” Carlos took a deep breath and pressed his lips together, closing the dam and Cecil is almost glad because he doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t want to know what Carlos has managed to hypothesize because already his heart hurts and that lump is back. But this time it’s in his throat, so he when he swallows he feels like he’s drowning but his mouth is dry.  

“But…but what if there isn’t?” he tries again. He licks his lips and clears his throat and tries to organize his thoughts because for all that he was good with words on air, there were still moments when Carlos made his tongue feel like it had been dipped in cement. “What if you are my soulmate and there is no one else? What if we stay together till death rips us apart and live happily lives until that moment? What if you…” And here the lump almost chokes him, “What if we … we … l-leave and-and we come to regret it and our lives fall apart because … because we got caught up in what ifs?”

And now he has Carlos’ full attention, the full weight of his eyes and his mind, turning, turning loud enough for Cecil to hear the cogs whirling.

“There is no way to prove soulmates,” Cecil plows on, “No way to create an experiment or set parameters to define what is or isn’t a soulmate.” He grabs Carlos’ hands and pulls him closer, “So I can’t prove if we are or we aren’t. I can’t prove if you’re wrong or I’m wrong or if any love story is right. And I can’t even…I can’t even promise you forever.”

“But…I think…I think the only way to see if you’re meant to be with someone. Forget soulmates,” Cecil waved his free hand as if pushing the topic away, out of sight, out of mind, gone. “The only way to prove if you could live the rest of your forever, no matter how short or long or relatively pain free, with someone is to _try_.” He wants to end with something grand, something to drive his half-garbled thoughts turned into words home. But his words fall short and he feels his lips close around three words that mean so much and can be said so easily because at the end of the day they are all he has, “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Carlos near whispers. “I just…”

“I know.” Cecil says even if he doesn’t, even if he wants to but he can’t because Carlos is a mind he’ll never fully understand even if they truly were soulmates and destined to spend lifetime after lifetime together. But he says it because it makes the tension in Carlos’ shoulders lift. He says it because Carlos slides closer and all put collapses into Cecil so his face is buried where shoulder meets chest and he can feel the warmth of Carlos’ breath through his shirt and against his skin.

“I love you,” because it is still new, the words carrying a new weight after everything they've been through (frustration and separation and war and rebellion and terror and humor and happiness and grief and...and...) and because Cecil doesn’t say it enough. “I love you.”

**Author's Note:**

> There are some parts where the language could be better, but I'm not sure how to improve it.


End file.
